West End Workbench

[Woodcock29]

Hi Jonathan
I like the K3 - I recently picked up a secondhand Bachmann BR loco only and am thinking of making it into one with GN cab.

I note the GN tender on the O2 appears to have Spencer double acting buffers on it - something else to change. Will you be making it into an O2/1 given the cab is more suitable for that than an O2/2?
When I built mine back in 1982 I ended up making a new more rounded sheet metal cab more suited to the O2/2. I've also got a dismantled O2/3 that I got for about 20 pounds out here as a non-runner. It was built very well as in it all fitted very well and was nicely painted but was glued and literally fell apart. So that will be rebuilt as an an O2/3. I've also got an unbuilt O2/3, again bought cheap (about 65 pounds at one of our BRMA annual conventions) which is destined to become a Gresley O1. I've been accumulating suitable parts I'll need for a while.

Interested to see how you get on with the J5, one of Frank Davies designs for LRM. I'm looking forward to getting one of the J1s in due course when that becomes available. I was going to convert one of GK's resin J6s into a J1 but now Frank's done one for Clayton I'll wait for that.

Regards

Andrew

[jwealleans]

Morning Andrew,

I haven't thought that far ahead about the O2, tbh. It was never really intended to be a major project, it's just one of those which keeps growing every time I look at it. I have one of Mr King's resin cabs intended for a Heljan one, I'll compare the two.

I picked up a couple of SEF K3s cheap on Ebay and I'm shuffling tenders between them at the moment before refinishing. Tom Foster had assembled all the right bits for this one, just not finished it, so I kept the same identity.

The J5 is John Coffin's design, not Frank Davies. I haven't tried one of Frank's yet although I'd also like a J1 when they become available. I do like these little GN 0-6-0s. This one allows you to remove boiler and smokebox for painting. As mine will be black I'll probably solder it all together once I've made the drive unit fit.

[S.A.C. Martin]

The O2 looks great. What does the etch for the O2 valve gear include? I managed to get a Heljan chassis that was minus bits of the eccentric gear on arrival, and an etch towards building up replacement valve gear would be really, really useful!

[Woodcock29]

Hi Jonathan
I stand corrected on the origins on the J5 kit design then but I think his real name is Paul Craig. I've had some emails with him previously on GN tenders when I was building my J3 and D2. A most helpful chap. He did all the drawings in the late Malcolm Crawley's GN Tender book.

I'm currently kitbashing a Ks/NuCast ex J3 tender into a Type A tender with equal wheelbase using a Mainly Trains tender chassis and outer frames from GK. Must try and get the coal rails done today. It will be a replacement for the rather awful Type B tender that has run with my old WSM J6 since the mid 80s! If it comes up well I've got two more I could do.

Andrew

[jwealleans]

Still awaiting a couple of packages, so stuck on some jobs. Did a couple of wagons just to while the time away...



These were presented to me by El Jobbo the Merciful of Copmanthorpe. I hope he likes what I've done with them. Although I think I came out ahead, the lettering was a reminder that Powsides products really are the work of the devil himself.

I've also been working on this - K3 227 with the Hulburd water treatment gear. It needed a stepped GS tender, so I've robbed one from a kit built K3 which is awaiting refurbishment. I hope to have this ready for Leeds. It would run now, but the colour makes it stand out a little.



One thing which did arrive was the motion fret for the O2. I've stripped the existing motion down, so I'll make a start on this when I have a few uninterrupted hours ahead of me.

[jwealleans]

Been a fairly productive day today. There's a Grantham running session next weekend, so I've been preparing some locos which have a serious chance of being ready by then. That's K3s in the main. Other than the two already seen in these pages, I acquired this at the start of the month.



Nicely built, big Portescap and a Larry Goddard paint job. Bargain. It's turned into a bit of a conundrum, though. 4005 did run with a GS tender in the 1930s, so good for Grantham. However it did not have vac braking for the loco at that time, so the top reservoir on the tender had to go, Larry or no Larry. There's no coal, so the paintwork scar will be covered up by a spill. Then the tender lining was wrong - it had been done as panels, rather than the top and bottom lines continuing round the corners and across the back. Now we're seriously interfering with a Larry paint job, but after a few days contemplating I took the lines off with cellulose thinners and a cocktail stick and made good the gaps.

The other problems are the smokebox door rivets, which are wrong for the LNER period. I have drawn the line there as we might get into serious respray territory and they aren't that conspicuous.

As well as Larry's signature underneath, it's marked (in his writing) 'Alton Model Centre'. Unfortunately they don't have records so can't tell me who built it. Whoever they were was a very good builder. It has a representation of the conjugated gear and plunger pickups, which I've never been able to make work. I don't think it's ever been used - the wheels were spotless and there were no couplings or any sign of any ever having been fitted. I'm not sure it had ever pulled a train - until today. It hadn't lived entirely in a cabinet, though - there was damage to the front guard irons and vac upstand and a number of paint chips, suggesting a drop or some rough handling. When I tested it on the layout, the sandpipes touched the track and the loco-tender gap was way too tight for 3' curves, suggesting it had not been run to any great extent.

I've added worksplates and glazed the spectacles, touched in the chips and bare metal and extended the tender drawbar. It has now done a few laps on Ramsey with the Scotch Goods stock and works as well as it looks. If I can find a crew to fit in the very restricted cab it will get one, but certainly coal, fire irons and a light weathering are in view. Here is is with 17, which also did some more test running today, as a result of which the tender will have some ballast added.





227 is still having final paintwork done on the tender, but it'll have its own gallop round tomorrow.

While the Scotch Goods was out, I added this to photograph - Riley now suitably protected for its journey.

[jwealleans]

227 took a turn on the Scotch goods as promised and all looked well.



The train itself has evolved since the Southampton show and will look different. I've built some container flats which will appear, but I've also, after a recommendation by Andy Sparkes on RMWeb, read a book called Mixed Traffic by R Barnard Way. I may have mentioned this before. Published in 1937, the author was a journalist who clearly had a strong interest in railways and persuaded them to allow him to ride on particular workings and then write up his experiences. It's an interesting book and includes a trip with the 15:40 Scotch Goods. The little nugget I gathered from it was that it was booked to stop at Sandy and collect fruit and vegetable traffic which was added to the head of the train. All the pictures I've been working from were taken further south and have containers leading. Henceforth there will be fruit traffic.



I also built a couple more 'foreign' vans, just to mix it up. There's a MOGO somewhere as well, but it must have been put into a different box last time we packed up. I reckoned these could plausibly have come north from Feltham for forwarding. Some LMS ones would be an idea when I spot a likely kit.

[nzpaul]

That's a lot of K3s for one train set. Do they take turns on the same train or is each one set up with its own train. I'm just curious to know if it's a case of providing as many detail differences within the class or providing multiple examples to reduce mileage on the mechanisms.

Paul

[jwealleans]

Too many for this train set, but they were obtained with Grantham in mind. It's also a bit of opportunism; the donor for 227 came from Hattons when they were knocking them out at £70 a pop and Tom Foster sold me 17 unfinished at a decent price. I suppose it's the 'take it while it's there' mentality which a lot of us have. Once you have more than a couple, looking into how to differentiate them and have a bit of variety logically follows.

[NZRedBaron]

I seem to recall that no. 69 had an NER-style low-windowed cab; is that something you'd be looking into?

[Woodcock29]

Fully agree with Jonathan's never miss an opportunity philosophy. I have heaps of projects to undertake all picked up for really good prices when the opportunity arises. I will never finish many of the projects but at least I can pick and choose what I undertake next. Mind you I usually have at least half a dozen projects on the go at once if not more!
Andrew

[jwealleans]

seem to recall that no. 69 had an NER-style low-windowed cab

All of that first LNER batch (including 17) were built like that but were converted to the higher cab window position during the 1930s. I did 53 in original condition some time ago:



That one wasn't for me and we have one in the Grantham collection already which comes from someone else. 17 has the last version of the NE cab with the windows placed right up under the eave. I have a kit built one which will become 1125 with some work and then maybe one of the very last batch (although again there is one on Grantham already). The version I did have all the bits collected for is the GN cab/GN tender one, but Mr. King supplies that for shows so that's well down the list of projects. By the later 1930s the majority of GN cab locos had the stepped GS tender as 4005.

Given that Ebay prices have ballooned beyond all limits of logic since the pandemic started, it's puzzled me that I've seen so many quite nicely built K3s at what I'd call sensible money (£70 - 80) over the last 18 months. I'm sure the Bachmann version has an effect, but they were almost impossible to get hold of the last time I looked and many of the second hand ones have the well known lining errors. i haven't seen the same number of kitbuilt V2s, given the impending Bachmann version, or J69s (given the widely rumoured RTR release).

[Hatfield Shed]

...Some LMS ones (vans) would be an idea when I spot a likely kit...

As I understand it, especially on trains conveying traffic to and from Scotland. Some of the NBR's sliding door vans too. (I have not an idea whether the other Scottish companies were similarly equipped.) All to do with rail served premises on which cupboard doors would foul.

... J69 ... the widely rumoured RTR release...

Do tell more.

[jwealleans]

I can't, tbh, other than it's something I've read/heard several times in the last few months and most significantly from people connected with the GERS, who you'd think a sensible manufacturer might involve. That's as certain as my knowledge gets.

[jwealleans]

Another item finished for the weekend. I was gifted this some time ago. It's an ECJS XBV, produced by a chap who sells through Shapeways. Honestly, I couldn't recommend it as the finish was appalling and in addition it's not accurate (there should be a single door to the right of the ducket on both sides. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, it struck me as a suitable candidate for a coupling adaptor van rather than the Bachmann fish vans we tend to use in extremis. So here it is, multiple coats of paint later in an attempt to fill the striations and with the ECJS number as we have not been able to locate the NER renumbering it was given in 1922 when transferred to that company's stock.





It's unusual, if nothing else.